Portraits
by LilyBartAndTheOthers
Summary: Portraits of Karen Walker by people of her entourage put in parallel with all the secret things that happen in her life. WK fic.
1. First portrait, allusion

Will...

It has to be her smile and the way it lights up her graceful features. The darkness of her eyes contrasts with the paleness of her skin and the severity of her gaze comes to die in the fragility of her bones.

She looks like a porcelain doll, a very old one that you can only find behind the dusty window of an antique store. The curves of her lips are perfect, as well as their softness but nobody knows about it except me and perhaps her husband if he hasn't forgotten what it was like when he was still allowed to steal from her a couple of kisses.

Unless it is all about her laugh and the way she leans her head backwards by then. Her hair brushes her mid-back as she almost closes her eyes. Once, a tear escaped between her eyelashes. It rolled down on her cheek before vanishing along her jaw in a sparkling trail of some transparent warmth. I remained focused on it, wondering what it would be like to follow it with my fingertips until her throat vibrated under my skin as a long moan would slip through her lips. It never happened again.

Her ankles are delicate and feminine, like her hips that I love caressing. This is when she begins to shiver, to arch her back and as she locks her hazel eyes with my brown ones, she pleads me to go on, in silence.

She is not that talkative in the intimacy. When I asked her the reasons why, one day, she told me that she respected words way too much to use them inappropriately. That's why she reads constantly. She has a thing for poetry but since she gets moved very easily, she always tends to choose a novel instead because fiction can't reach her feelings that well.

I could spend a whole night studying the perfect lines of her cleavage. When her top is discarded, my fingers always brush the shape of her breasts, over her bra. She prefers lace to satin, black to red. Her chest moves up and down as my lips make contact with her flesh. I follow the straps and take them off slowly.

She is a pleasure to undress from her stilettos to the delicacy of her garter belts. It is in her attitude, the way she looks at you, pouting or biting her lower lip. Adrenalin runs through your veins and you know that you are at her mercy.

Some women will try their whole life, sticking to stereotypes more or less convincingly but she owns a singular natural that gets you excited and then you can't resist.

Like the finest diamond she shines on top of the list.

Karen Walker is indeed, one of the best mistresses.

…….

Her agenda was as important as her most precious gems. She never abandoned it on the edge of a table; never let it disappear behind a cushion. Her whole life was written down throughout the pages, getting mixed with business cards and odd personal missives. It might have sounded reductive for thirty-eight years already accomplished and full but the elegant shape of her fountain pen sliding over the white paper had turned into the only real thing she should have cared about.

The rest was so fucked up that she preferred to pretend she had let it all behind.

And so she kept on writing, leafing through the pages in a reassuring motion. Her fingertip caressed the black leather _ soft under the skin _ and when she opened it wide, a thousand treasures came to the light.

A thousand secrets too, some things people didn't have to know about. From the weekly appointments at a mysterious hospital lost in a small town of New Jersey to the series of hotel addresses where she used to meet Will for a few hours of illegitimate encounters, every single detail of what should have been shameful seemed to find its place in the notebook.

Writing was a pure catharsis. She simply needed it to feel free.

Will closed the door of the bathroom behind him. Still in bed, she counted until five and when she finally heard the shower running in the background she abandoned the heat of the blanket and rolled on her stomach to the end of the mattress to grab her bag resting there on the carpeted floor. She took her fountain pen out of it _ her agenda _ then engraved a cross under the date of the day like an odd tattoo of a prohibited regret.

She was laid across the mattress, completely naked. Her left foot was playing with a pillow as the words were filling a new page. Anecdotes, wonders, assignments and crosses; it was all more personal than actually secretive.

Will made his way out of the bathroom but she barely paid attention to him until he threw his towel on her buttocks which made her groan.

"Damn… It is wet, honey!"

The object of her remark disappeared almost immediately but got substituted by an unexpected kiss; and a light caress. Will had a thing for caresses.

Resigned she dropped out her activity and giggled softly. His lips were hot against her bare skin, soft.

"I thought you were in a hurry, Will."

"Clients aren't a priority when I am facing perfect asses."

"And this one is guaranteed without cellulite but still…"

She rolled on her back and grabbed his chin before planting a light kiss on his lips.

"Your life is waiting."

Will stood up and went for his clothes scattered on the floor haphazardly. Arms under her head _ still on her back _ she followed his movements from the bed, balancing nonchalantly a leg in the air. There was a time when her carefree attitude used to take him aback, when she exposed her naked body to him like that. It made him feel nervous, uncomfortable.

But things had changed now.

"Do you have any plan for the rest of the day?"

She shrugged, pouted.

"Might stop by Grace's office… I have forgotten to take my magazine."

His fingers got intertwined with hers in a subtle and last embrace of their hands, an odd ritual they had come up with for whatever reason. Then he left.

She rolled back on her stomach and grabbed her agenda, buried it in her bag and took out a book instead, as well as her glasses. Sliding under the blanket, Karen settled down and began to read.


	2. Second portrait, observing

Olivia…

I wish I were like her. I know, it is rather unexpected but wouldn't life be boring if everything was determined even before being said out loud?

We spend most of our time arguing. She pretends that she doesn't understand me but the truth is that I remind her of someone she might have been once; this person she tries to hide so desperately. Something happened in her past, when she was a child. I don't know what exactly but it got to determine all the rest and the reason why her injuries never really disappear at the end. I guess she suffers a lot and her silence is hard to bear.

People don't respect her. They are actually afraid of her, of the words she uses so harshly. It is the only way she has found to get attention and I wouldn't be surprised if she did think that it brought some balance to her life.

Strength of persuasion can change a whole perspective, even when it comes to our lies.

Her high heels hit the marble floor of the lobby with the determination of a cold soul. Her eyes can send interminable series of chills down your spine as she locks her eyes with yours and her brain scans your whole person. She doesn't like criticizing but it is vital to her fragile appearances.

Mrs. Walker is artificial, fake. It is a role, a sort of life-long one or at least until the marriage breaks down. But the interesting part is behind the lipstick, under the haute couture clothes and the snappy remarks. If you take off layer after layer, the appearances suddenly fade away and you come to face Karen.

She is a whole different person.

She lacks self-confidence and is terribly shy. A mere word can make her blush or bring tears to her eyes but a bitter strength holds them on for the few necessary minutes before she hurries to a secure place; then breaks down into cries. I heard her once, on the terrace. I was looking for a book in the library and she hadn't closed the door properly. Her sobs were stifled but still perceptible behind the green plants. The fact is that the nature of her sadness remains a complete mystery because it is not a result of some argument with my father or the failure of their relationship that pushes her to do so. No, it is something deeper and I guess, a lot more painful.

She is not perfect but this is exactly what makes her so interesting. Her antagonisms are delicate, very well shaped and the combination is bewitching. I wish I were so complete, in my own lame way. I wish I were able to hold a conversation about medieval poetry as she does and still pretend that I am stupid just to fool them all. They are so naïve.

She plays with them to forget all the rest. Does it work? I guess so, at some point. Or the result wouldn't be the same. She wouldn't be Karen.

……

"Good evening, New York."

His hand slid on her nape before his lips following the gesture in a kiss. The warmth of his body against her back stirred up a boiling sensation of excitement in her stomach and she swallowed hard; pressed her foot against the large window overlooking Manhattan.

"Am I a perverse that I love observing the city while you are having your way with me? I find it extremely arousing…"

His fingers abandoned her breasts and headed down to her inner thighs. She spread her legs, leaned her head backwards on his shoulder. She didn't wait for an answer to her question and went on. Curiously enough it seemed that the roles had been reversed today and she couldn't stop speaking when Will had plunged into an unusual silence.

"I love the idea I am watching them all and they can't do the same with me; that they have no idea of what's going on, how a woman is shivering under the pleasure of sex and still scrutinizes them without the slightest shame or embarrassment. It is kind of erotic, isn't it?"

In a smooth gesture Will lifted her hips and sat her down on his lap. She moaned, sighed before the sudden fusion of their bodies then began to follow his thrusts at a slow pace. It had to last. She was enjoying the position, the place, the view and the feelings. It couldn't be a mere question of minutes or she would end up frustrated.

Her hands grabbed his buttocks and she pushed him towards her, deeply. His tongue was playing with her bare shoulder, trailing invisible circles that were driving her crazy. Most of the times she preferred to dominate him. At the beginning it had seemed appropriate enough but very soon she had understood that his experiences with women were a lot more developed than what he had advanced in the first place. For a few seconds she had taken it bad but who was she to judge his lies? By spending some time with him, she had implicitly accepted to be part of them too.

"Would you still be excited if they were able to watch you properly?"

His breath was short and hot against her flesh. She speeded up the pace of their movements and shrugged.

"If I had reached a point of non-return, honestly I wouldn't give a flying fuck about them."

Her orgasm began to boil in her lower stomach, warming up her legs; tightening her throat in a restrained sigh. Her hands got tensed against his flesh. She bit her lips, frowned.

"Being politically incorrect is a lot more exciting."

But she barely heard his sentence as a wave of pleasure spread over her whole body and she arched her back, smiling brightly; satisfied.


	3. Third portrait, therapy

Lois…

I always knew that she would be different and perhaps wouldn't feel so well in this world.

It all started when she was three years old. All of a sudden she began to spend a lot of time observing the sky in silence, for entire hours. You still could try to speak to her, it seemed that she had left her own mind and was floating somewhere in between. It took her a long moment to come back to reality and when she did, her eyes were sparkling of a thousand tears.

I was just hoping that she was enjoying her secret fantasies.

But then she climbed on top of trees, jumped; plunged her head under the water of her bath, prevented from breathing. One day while a repetitive sound had got my attention, I entered her bedroom and there she was, literally throwing herself against the wall. When I asked her why she was doing that, always risking her life and getting hurt, she answered that she simply wanted to join the clouds and so for that she had to die.

I have no idea about the reasons why that pushed her to such a terrifying idea and it made me feel guilty, powerless and bitterly disarmed before my own daughter's distress. I had this feeling that I had failed before her protection and it was too late.

She went into a therapy until the age of seven but even though her suicidal behavior stopped, an odd and heavy atmosphere remained. Something had got broken between the two of us and I knew that it was the end. I had lost her.

Our relation got worse with the years passing by until she finally stormed out at the age of sixteen and from then on lived with her aunt. I used to call her every week but she always refused to speak to me. She went to college and one day I read in the newspapers that she had married a powerful businessman. It is when I began to receive monthly checks with the single, brief note enclosed: _don't call me. _

The situation hasn't changed that much now even though we crossed each other a couple of times this year. I have barely spent more than three hours with her but as much as she tries to run away from me, she will never be a stranger.

She hides her emotions and finds a disturbing pleasure in the pain it brings to her, as if she deserved it. She hates the slightest notion of power, can't face an argument and dreams of independence when all she is dying for is to find quietness in someone's arms. She is the exact opposite of what she's pretending but once again, it is simply a shield. Her emotions are so strong that she is scared of what they could do to her. It is not about lies but how to avoid primary insecurities.

Perhaps she constantly tries to run away from me because she has understood that we were alike and for some reason, she can't stand it.

……

She heard the steps coming from the corridor and barely looked up at him as he entered the office. Instead, she kept on turning her spoon in her mug; pointless gesture since she never added sugar.

"She is not here. She had to run for some errands, apparently. I guess she actually got pissed off by a thousand things, starting with me."

Her comment caused Will to laugh softly but he didn't insist. The good thing with him was that she could be herself and use her sense of humor without dreading a misunderstanding. They had this bond that seemed so rare; the exact same one that had pushed them in each other's arms some time ago.

Abandoning his briefcase on the floor, Will sat down on an armchair that had been delivered in the morning. He crossed his legs, began to hum a tune along. Logically enough she came to stand in front of him, leaning on Grace's desk nonchalantly.

"Am I supposed to give her a message? Looks like I am productive or want to so take advantage of it honey because it won't last."

Settled in the Victorian armchair, Will raised an amused eyebrow. A smile played on his lips.

"If you are in a productive mood, I can think about several things for you to do. It would be too bad to waste this opportunity, don't you think so?"

He grabbed a pen and began to chew on it, obviously delighted by the implicit idea he had suggested. A few seconds passed by in a complete silence where his brown eyes were locked with Karen's hazel ones and when she finally put down the mug on the desk and sat up on the table _ balancing her feet in the air _ she shook her head, smiling.

"You shouldn't go into para-masturbating fantasies if you haven't left behind your oral stage yet, Will. Stop taking this pen for whatever you would like to have in your mouth and think about what is supposed to come after."

"And what is that, Doctor Freud?"

Her stilettos landed on the floor in a soft sound as they hit the wood. She moved her tiptoes playfully until her right foot began to slide up Will's pants. The fabric was soft under her skin, yet separated by her nylons but she still could feel him got tensed at the sudden contact. Very slowly her tiptoes reached his inner thighs and teasingly she began to caress him.

"Why of course it is the anal stage, honey."

She passed her tongue over her lips and smiled mischievously, suddenly directing her foot right over the zipper of his pants. He vaguely jumped but spread his legs immediately to give her better access.

His arousing was obvious now and all of a sudden Karen realized that her own breath was short. She was almost panting.

"If you don't mind I would prefer to skip this one. I am not into pervert games that much."

A laugh of surprise escaped from her throat as her foot intensified its comings and goings along his shaft.

"Now that is unexpected. I mean, coming from a gay man… I had always imagined that you liked it both sides, both ways."

Will suddenly stood up and grabbed her buttocks, pushing her towards him with a gentle but yet arousing strength. His fingers passed under her skirt and caressed the edge of her thong.

"The phallic stage is a lot more interesting between your thighs."

Her fingertip caressed his shaft and went up his shirt mischievously, stopped in the middle of his chest. She pushed him away with a single gesture of her hand then stood up and put her stilettos on; readjusted her skirt. She grabbed her mug and sat at her desk, looked up at him.

"Then let's check tonight if you are ready for a full development therapy."


	4. Fourth portrait, blaming

Me…

You don't know me but Karen does, quietly. She is even a very important part of my life but of course she ignores it. For some reason I have the sensation that it hasn't crossed her mind, the slightest second; because she is not like that.

Her sister is egocentric, her mother has responsibility issues and her brother shines by his absence of sentiments. In the middle of this singular crowd, Karen is lost and feels in the way but she never says it, she never did. Even as a child she used to pretend that everything was fine because the world seemed to have enough worries like that. She made herself invisible until she finally adopted the features of a too perfect role and there she goes, terribly alone and misunderstood.

She comes here every week. Nobody told her to do so and yet I know that on Friday at 3pm, she is going to pass the door and smile at me softly. She doesn't speak that much as if she were afraid it would get me tired or that I wouldn't understand and finally throw a fit in the big living-room where we get visits. I wouldn't of course; unless hugging her tightly is a sign of dementia. I miss her tiny frame around me.

Since this is not a medical record, I will save you up the long explanations of the scientists to simply tell you that it is a sort of stone pressing against my brain. It affects the connections and one day, all of a sudden, I stopped speaking. It is not that I have forgotten _ I still own a pretty dense vocabulary _ but the message between my vocal chords and my brain is damaged and so I can't speak. They think that the whole thing is like Alzheimer and that I am forgetting everything, everyone. But it is not true or I wouldn't be able to tell you what I know about Karen.

I wouldn't be able to recognize her or even anticipate her visits.

My hands shake too violently now so I can't write either. Don't think it is sad. I saw a lot of worse things in my life and to be honest, remaining quiet is rather appealing after a time of adaptation. Frustration before people's misunderstandings goes away in the end. You forgive them. We can't know everything, after all.

They thought that I would die a lot earlier. That's why I ended up here many years ago. At the beginning the whole family used to come, staring at me with the embarrassment of the ones who are not sure if they are supposed to get sentiments, until the day Lois told me that they were about to move away. I guess she thought that I couldn't hear her or understand her words because she didn't look at me, just held my hand before leaving the room in a heavy silence. I am not mad at her, she was just trying to turn the page.

I didn't cry until nine years later Karen passed the door and locked her eyes with mine. She had changed and the sparkling flame in her gaze had lowered but there she was, by my side. She sat down next to me and grabbed my hand; remained silent for a couple of hours.

She came back every week then, going through the same ritual. We don't speak, just hold hands until the clock sticks five then she plants a kiss on my forehead and leaves in a soft murmur.

"See you next week, dad."

It is not that she doesn't have feelings but she just doesn't know how to handle their vitality.

…….

It hadn't been planned and yet seemed to have been so whenever she thought about it. The storm, the impossibility to go back to the house, the only room available at the hotel near the airport… It had been a series of circumstances that had had to lead to the impossibility of an affair maybe not so unexpected in the end.

Stanley was supposed to stay on the island a few days more and since she had grown bored, she had accepted Will's invitation to come back to Manhattan earlier with him. But that had been before the sky turned into a deep, menacing gray and the wind began blowing, forcing the planes to remain on the ground for the rest of the evening.

The roads had been cut so they had rushed to a hotel, the closest one but like all the other passengers trapped in a gloomy airport in The Bahamas. Wasn't it funny how a so-called paradise could turn so suddenly into a living hell?

She had opened the door of the bedroom and swallowed back a remark over the size of the only bed, how you could barely stand between the mattress and the wall.

Politely enough, they had shared a quiet dinner at the restaurant of the hotel before going to bed. The night would be long and uncertain, artificially intimate.

She hadn't meant anything in the first place.

They had watched a movie, trapped in the narrow sheets of the bed and when the trailers had appeared on the screen at the end, they had remained quiet; confused and embarrassed before the obvious message of the fiction.

Enjoy every second of your life instead of dying of regrets for the rest of your days.

How could she be the one to blame?

Awkwardly enough, she had looked up at him and the rest had tipped over through a thousand kisses, moans and sighs. Sure she hadn't stopped him but instead pushed him closer to her body when his hands had passed underneath her satin negligee while his lips were drawing a path of kisses down her neck. It had even felt relieving; and warm. Maybe not that logical but who had said that life was supposed to be so anyway?

She had straddled him and plunged her head in his neck, her hips following his thrusts; her back arching under his caresses. It had been intense and true enough to be honest, probably too much. Within a minute they had ceased to be friends and undressed each other with the avidity of impatient lovers, their eyes scanning the slightest inch of flesh; their tongues engraving the taste of the skin and their fingertips bringing pleasure to the most prohibited places.

She loved the warmth of his breath on her neck _ just under her ear _ and the way his body seemed to match hers so perfectly. It was insanely hot, a torture for her feelings when his hands ran on her inner thighs and his lips followed behind. It couldn't have been a one-night stand. It would have been too bad for the rest of their lives.

"Karen, you are not listening! What are you thinking about?"

But what drove her crazy was the way he used to look at her mischievously when his head was there, between her hips.

She shrugged at Grace, smiled.

"Just an old friend of mine, honey; a very old friend…"


	5. Fifth portrait, inexistence

Grace…

She looks sad, sometimes, as if the slightest ounce of hope has abandoned her and there she is, completely disarmed before life. I have never witnessed that on someone else. We can feel down _ a bit tired _ but not so distressed as the blankness of her gaze and this huge sensation of anxiety she tries to hide over and over. It never lasts more than a couple of seconds but I wonder how she deals with the intensity of the moment.

I guess I barely know Karen, in all honesty. She is my friend, a very close one, but yet I have this sensation that she is never herself, in any circumstance. She lies, makes fun of herself to avoid some cries and insist to ignore her past or at least pretend that she has forgotten it all, that it doesn't matter that much and so we shouldn't care.

She probably went through bad patches, maybe still does but that's the most complicated part with her. She refuses help. The mere idea she might find support thanks to people's presence turns immediately into a burning shame and she becomes quiet, starts laughing instead of accepting her suffering.

It is not that I want to insist on this dark side but I really guess that she is not happy.

It began way before Stanley got arrested. They were going through a crisis which springs remain blurry since she never wanted to talk about it. As a matter of fact, her husband's arrest might have relieved her a little but very soon she put back an expressionless face, avoided some conversations. We all have secrets but they don't have to weigh so much on our shoulders and I hope she knows that I am her confident, that she can trust me.

Her relation with her family is hectic if not completely inexistent. Apparently her father died when she was seven and from then on they kind of ran throughout the whole country. She left home when she was sixteen and the last thing I know is her consecutive weddings to businessmen, billionaires from The Upper East Side.

I would love to know all the rest, the reasons why she came up with the character of 'Karen'. Because yes; it is a role, a bitter one.

She can be very sweet, very attentive. By then she is probably the closest to herself and doesn't try to pretend anything. She puts aside her extravaganzas and opens her arms to you, warmly. Since it doesn't match with the usual image she carries on, you are taken aback and can't help falling under the unexpected charm.

All I can say is that she brightens our lives. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if we hadn't met five years ago. We might have saved her a little too, who knows? But which is sure is that her presence by our side is indispensable to give sense to our lives.

I trust her. She trusts me. There is no way she would ever disappoint me.

…….

"Jack left a message to say that he had arrived safe and Grace just called me. She is at her parents' place."

His remark stirred up a smile on her lips. Sitting up on the table of the living-room, she turned around to face him and put her feet on his lap. Her body was warm, fresh from the shower she had just taken. The bathrobe was soft against her bare skin.

Her tiptoes began to draw invisible circles over his hips. She locked her eyes with his; raised a falsely dubitative eyebrow.

"Does that mean we are alone?"

It didn't take Will very long to reply and as he loosened the belt of her bathrobe, she slid her feet up on his shoulders, leaning backwards on her elbows. His hands began to run on her inner thighs, releasing her body from the piece of clothing. The air hit her flesh; she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Did he have the mere idea how she loved being at his mercy?

His lips made contact with her legs and she arched her back instinctively, in anticipation, pushing him closer to her. And when his mouth finally reached her flesh, she couldn't restrain a gasp; a smile lighting up her features.

His gestures were soft and slow, matching her breathing with a bewitching perfection. He had always know what to do, how to drive her crazy and tease her enough so that her orgasm got enough time to increase its intensity in a boiling agony of her senses.

His fingertips seemed to fly away over her hips with the lightness of a mischievous breeze while her own hand had landed through his hair in an attempt to find a vague balance before her precarious half-sat/half-laid down position on the table of the living-room.

It was good to feel him against her, between her legs. His breath was hot on her flesh, the pace of his comings and goings perfect; growing all along her arousing.

As much as she could barely imagine a sexual life without oral sex, she had never forced him to go into this direction. He had taken her by surprise once and from then on it had belonged to a lusty routine in the darkness of a hotel room or the depths of his bed when they happened to be alone. He was good at it.

His tongue speeded up the pace, pressing harder against her flesh. She gasped, lifted her hips to make full contact with him. Brief shivers were already running through her body as an introduction of the moment she would reach a very well-known point of non-return.

The back of her head hit the table softly as she fully leaned backwards, abdicating under the warmth of a hardly contained pleasure.

"Stop…"

Will didn't hear her whisper and so she pushed him away with her feet, sitting back up on the table immediately. Her cheeks were red, her breath short and her lips swollen. She looked high and sexy.

"I want you now."

She swallowed hard, trying to catch up her breath as Will stood up and placed himself between her legs. She squeezed his waist and began to kiss his neck before unbuttoning his shirt.

"By the way I need you at the office tomorrow by five."

"I can't. It's Friday. You know I'm not available before six or so."

His shirt got discarded and sent to the floor as she found back his lips in a deep kiss. She loved running her fingers on his chest in a light gesture then bumping on the metal of his belt and the indecency of the zipper of his pants. Lacking air, she broke the kiss and traced a trail of them on his naked shoulder blades.

"Can't you make an exception?"

"Nope… Categorically…"

"You know… I always wondered what you could do on those Friday afternoons that it kept you away from the rest of the world; no mattered what. It is not Stanley since you visit him on Saturday..."

She let go of his pants, caressed his buttocks through his boxers. His hands brushed her shoulders and took off the bathrobe, offering her breasts to his lips within a second. She arched her back under his teasing kisses, smiled.

"Why of course I am visiting my ex-lovers. You know… The ones I sent to the cemetery."

His laugh drove her crazy against her skin. She got rid of his boxers and began to massage him.

"What is the cause of their death?"

"Pure ecstasy… And yours?"

"What mine?"

"How about your lovers, women I mean? Don't tell me there are just Diane and me. I know it's a lie."

His lips were slowly going up to her neck, replaced on her breasts by his hands.

"Oh… You mean Amanda, Brooke, Samantha, Julie, Rebecca…"

Before his obvious irony, Karen rolled her eyes and groaned. They had never really alluded to their love life and it was probably not an appropriate moment at all but there they were and she wanted to know.

"Why do you want to know about that, anyway? Would it change something? I don't ask you how your sexual life was with Stanley!"

"Inexistent…"

The word came out before she even realized it. She cupped Will's face, kissed him softly and locked her eyes with his; shrugged.

"It was inexistent, any other question? If no then please fuck me…"

Lifting her hips a few inches, she guided him towards her and smiled before his vaguely troubled expression. She hadn't meant to make him uncomfortable; as a matter of fact, she had thought he had always more or less known that her marriage was just a couple of ruins. It wasn't a big deal.

"Why do you think I am here, honey? If I had been satisfied, it would have never happened."

Her heels pressed his lower back and as they finally became one, she lost herself in a long, deep kiss. His thrusts met hers and it didn't take very long before they both reached climax, shivering against each other, sharing the intensity of a warmth, boiling pleasure.

Sat up on the table, Karen didn't let go of him immediately. For some reason she needed a bit more of a human contact that evening.


	6. Sixth portrait, categorizing

Jack…

She had a normal life and she hates that. Raised in the suburbs of middle-class America where all the houses look similar, always the same boring streets and barbecues on Sunday; she might have been moving away all the time but the image remained until it made her mad and she stormed out.

I saw pictures. She doesn't know about it because it is supposed to be a secret, a shameful revelation that Karen Walker might not be so different. She keeps them in a box behind a pile of clothes in her closet. The oldest ones were taken in Arizona, somewhere in the desert, in the shadows of a cactus; a dry, dusty landscape.

We aren't close. I am just her entertainer. I know it sounds a bit harsh but nobody is to blame. After all I accepted this part since the very beginning and you can't force someone to confess to you everything. That's why Will is here. As much as they try to hide it, their natural connection is obvious and whenever the world turns a bit too hard for her, I know she goes towards him. She can trust him, it is okay.

Of course I wish I had been her Will.

I don't always understand why she wants to be different, not to fit in the crowd and let her life carry her on. It must be exhausting to pretend all along that you are someone else; a permanent control over her reactions, the slightest word she can say. I am sure sometimes she has to face immense nervous breakdowns but how can she go on? How can she burst into tears, look around at the emptiness of the room she locked herself in and still stand up on her feet so firmly?

Her strength is weighing way too much on her shoulders and one day I am afraid the whole machine is going to break into pieces.

And there will be nobody to prevent her from it.

……

"I'm sorry, honey, but tonight I can't. I have a meeting with Will. Let's do that tomorrow, okay? We can even go shopping if you feel like to."

Jack rolled his eyes and sighed, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand in a dramatic gesture. As much as they sounded ridiculous, she actually loved his exaggerated manners.

"But what am I going to do? Of course it's never too late to go on a date but we so have to see this movie right now!"

"Invite Grace…"

"Oh please, the girl is obsessed by her birthday that's approaching and if I hear one more time her suspicions over Will's mysterious date, I throw myself out of the window."

She could have thanked her fate or whatever was supposed to determine her life for having been sat because if she had had been walking, her sudden lack of balance wouldn't have passed unnoticed.

She knew it was stupid but yet a wave of anxiety had spread over her heart in an icy motion, making it beat quickly; getting her mouth dry. She laughed a bit forcefully.

"What are you talking about? Like Wilma would have any date… I mean, come on, be serious for once!"

"That's exactly what I told Grace when she began to explain her whole idea. The guy is having a little fun from time to time, hmm, no big deal. A quick fuck is far from being a relationship, hello!"

She kept on smiling but for some reason concentrated on the little pinch that Jack's innocent remark had stirred up over her heart.

Will was her lover. They did have sex together but the idea she might have been compared to a quick fuck actually bothered her under it was more the realization that it might bother her that did touch her.

She left Jack's apartment a few minutes later, hailed a cab and headed to the hotel where she was supposed to meet Will. The journey got lost in her confused mind and it is only when she opened the door of the suite and faced her lover that she seemed to finally come back to reality.

"Have you been stuck in traffic? I thought you would never make it."

Shaking her head absent-mindedly, Karen abandoned on the floor a bag from Barnes and Noble _ realized Will had one too _ and sat down on the edge of the mattress, vaguely facing him.

"What kind of book have you bought, Kare?"

Completely unaware of her silence, Will sat up and passed his hands around her waist as his lips began to draw a trail of kisses on her bare neck.

"_The Seminar XX, Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge_ by Lacan… I have always wanted to read it."

Will laughed against her shoulder. His breath was warm against her skin. She swallowed hard and frowned.

"Is that supposed to be a message, Kare?"

"Honey, am I just a quick fuck for you? Because as much as we multiply our sexual encounters, you still seem to care enough for me not to put me in this kind of cold and heartless category."

"What am I for you?"

She felt his chin lean on her shoulder as his kisses suddenly stopped. It didn't take her long to scan her thoughts, the blurriness of her wonders. Raising an eyebrow, Karen finally sighed.

"I have no idea…"

Obviously Will had been waiting for another kind of reply because the silence that followed her confession lasted way too long and when he finally broke it, his voice had changed of tone. He sounded softer, almost worried.

"How about we take a bath? The warmth of the water wouldn't be that bad, hmm?"

Karen nodded and followed him to the bathroom, taking off her clothes on her way. She sat on the countertop and balanced her feet in the air, her hands trapped under her hips. She stared at Will get undressed and as the water finally filled the large tub, she took off her underwear before succumbing to the bubbles of a relaxing bath.

Will joined her, sitting on the other side, his feet barely brushing her hip for the tub being so large. She leaned her head backwards and closed her eyes.

"What's going on in your head, Kare? Sometimes I really wonder what you're thinking about, why…"

Opening back her eyes, she locked them with Will's brown ones and made her way to him. The suite was plunged in a deep silence only troubled by the inaudible sound of the water following her fluid movement. She straddled him, caressed his jaw line and smiled.

"Nothing important enough to be said out loud…"

She usually preferred to start with light kisses that would emphasize their increasing arousing but for some reason her tongue went straight for his this time as her fingertips travelled down his chest playfully.

His lips left hers for a way down her shoulders and feeling the tension grow up, her hips began to thrust against his pelvis, teasingly; slowly.

"You're way too important for me to belong to this low category."

His voice sounded hot against her ear and as his hands finally reached her breasts, she leaned her head backwards, closed her eyes and smiled brightly.

Lifting up her hips a few inches, Karen abandoned the massage on his shaft and guided him into her body; swallowed hard as the connection got complete.

Her thrusts followed a slow pace matching the kisses she was leaving on his neck as his hands were running along her hips; her back arching in a fluid movement, led by the waves of the water. She grabbed the edge of the tub and speeded up a little before locking her eyes with his in the intensity of an understood silence.

She stared at him all along, aroused by his gaze on her and the promiscuity of their faces; the burning fusion of their bodies. In a last, deep kiss, she felt her orgasm hit her unexpectedly and gasped in his mouth as a long sigh of pleasure escaped quietly and Will lost himself in his own paroxysm.


	7. Seventh portrait, papers

Stanley…

She never loved me.

I understood it the day I proposed her. Before her blank eyes, I felt how she was kind of stumbling against my words and their meanings. She didn't say no but never stopped regretting to have landed her eyes on me from then on. She had fallen into the trap of her innocent seduction towards a businessman, probably a sort of challenge she had decided to take up in a revengeful whim before a past she had always hated.

From one crisis to another, our marriage can't but fail. I cheated on her, on several occasions. She knows about it but pretends that it doesn't change the slightest thing and somehow she is right since we never shared the mere feeling of love towards each other. Oh, she cares about me as I do for her but it is only a bitter illusion to mask all the rest.

She is a dedicated wife and spends a lot of time with my children. She plays with them, talks to them… I guess she likes them, not as if they were hers because she doesn't have a maternal instinct but as people who provide some balance to her fragile life. They are part of her and she likes that.

She visits every week and one day I know that I will ask her to cease because it doesn't make sense at all. I think she has ruined her existence enough for me and she needs to go on now, on her own.

I have all the papers ready for the divorce. I didn't ask Will to do so because they are way too close and he would have probably refused to remain silent about my project.

I will give her all the things she needs and it starts by her freedom. If we can't come backwards and change the past, we still can soften the future and make it better.

……

Since Stanley had been arrested and put in jail, the mansion didn't make sense anymore. The place was too big, too empty for a single person. The rooms that once had been warm and welcoming had suddenly turned into an icy labyrinth of bitter souvenirs and there she was, wandering through them like a troubled soul unable to find the necessary harmony to go away in peace.

She closed the door behind her and headed straight to the library. The fireplace was on. She sat down on an old armchair _ her legs crossed under her body _ and stared at the dancing flames for a few seconds. Their heat was coming by waves to her face in a red shade.

She finally grabbed the bag from Barnes and Noble and took the book she had previously bought out of it but frowned when she came to face the last Grisham's. That wasn't her purchase. She didn't like thriller and as she had said to Will previously in the evening, she had got one of Lacan's essays.

Will… She rolled her eyes and realized that she had taken the wrong bag while leaving the hotel room. He probably had hers. Resigned, she opened the novel and began to read it.

……

On the other side of Manhattan, Will opened the door of his apartment and smiled at Grace before throwing on the couch his bag from Barnes and Noble.

"I am starving…"

"So am I. I thought this appointment would never end."

When he had signed his first job contract as an attorney, the perspective of lying to win a trial had sounded terribly appealing but when it came to his friends, the words turned a lot bitter; harsh.

Trying to ignore his feelings, he headed straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge in search of whatever they could eat for dinner. Grace sat on the couch and grabbed the plastic bag, plunged her hand in it.

"What have you bought at Barnes and Noble?"

She took out of the bag the psychology essay and frowned; laughed before the title.

"I didn't know that you were interested in feminine sexuality and…"

She looked into the bag and took out of it a large, black leather agenda.

"And Karen's agenda…"

At the sound of Karen's name, Will looked up immediately and felt how his heart began to speed its pace dangerously.

"Looks like we mistook each other's bag, I will give it back to her tomorrow."

Was his voice slightly shaking? He swallowed hard to make the odd sensation disappear and raised a dubitative eyebrow at Grace's mischievous smile.

"Aren't you curious to know what Karen actually hides in her agenda? It's like her Bible or something. She never leaves it, anywhere. And yet she spends so much time writing down things on it."

Will sighed, rolled his eyes but his fake exasperation came to die in his obvious curiosity.

"Grace, I really don't think we should do that. It's her private life and… It would be really bad."

"But we would finally know about her so mysterious occupation on Friday afternoons. Maybe there's an address or something."

"Grace!"

Suddenly rushing out of the kitchen, Will grabbed Lacan's essay as well as Karen's agenda and headed to his bedroom, growling that he would give them back to her the day after. His precipitated gesture made the plastic bag from Barnes and Noble fall on the floor. Grace bent over to pick it up but as she did, a receipt slid off of it.

The booking of a suite under the name of Karen paid with her American Express; for this Friday from 7pm to 9pm, at The Lowell's.

Will came back in the living-room and she hid the piece of paper immediately, in spite of her obvious confusion. She cleared her voice, moved nervously on the couch.

"Where have you met Karen, by the way?"

"At the lounge of The Four Seasons, as usual… Why?"

"Nothing… I mean, never mind."

She swallowed hard.


	8. Eighth portrait, forgiving

Virginia…

Of course I love her. I mean, she is my sister so how could I hate her or simply ignore her? She probably said a couple of times how she didn't do emotions but the truth is that I am alike, we all are in this oppressing, dysfunctional family. It is a shield to prevent ourselves from breaking into pieces.

We used to get along until she turned fifteen. She accepted me by her side and let me plunge in her own world, a bit dark and terribly hopeful, without the slightest ounce of fear. She trusted me enough to do so. I have never betrayed her.

But things got worse and she began to change, to evolve into this angry young woman who seemed to have restrained her pain for too long and it was all exploding within her. Perhaps she was just a teenager but for some reason I am sure something else happened.

I have a thousand memories but she would hate me if I ever revealed any of them. Besides she left me behind. She had just turned sixteen and all of a sudden she packed and went away, without me. Does she even have an idea how it hurt me? During all these years I had learned to grow up by her side but she still abandoned the house when I needed her more than at anytime.

I will never forgive her for that. I am sorry but I can't.

Whenever we meet, I am always harsh. People who don't know her would think that she probably replies and enjoys this semi-fight but she doesn't. She looks down at her feet instead and blushes.

She doesn't like hurting people who have importance in her life. They are her references and she can't afford to go on lamely, without them.

She cries, she laughs, she storms out, she rushes to, she dreads, she loves, she dreams… In a word she is simply alive, like anyone.

……

The fact was that if Grace hadn't mentioned it, it would have probably never crossed his mind. Things would have go on smoothly and life wouldn't have tipped over as it was about to, within a couple of minutes when Will pushed the door of the psychiatric ward.

The whole journey to New Jersey resulted enough to increase his sentiment of guilt but the curiosity was still stronger. What would Karen do at a psychiatric ward every Friday afternoon and so far from Manhattan?

It hadn't even taken him five minutes to notice the recurrence in her agenda, barely reading all the rest from her prescriptions to what looked like short poems. It had been about the address and a phone number written down in red ink, at the bottom of the page of every single Friday of the year. Then Will had known that he had to check and put the light on one of Karen's numerous secrets.

He pushed the door of the medical service and took a deep breath, repeating in his head the whole speech he had prepared while coming there. A young nurse was filling papers at the reception, obviously plunged in her work with a delicate attention.

"Excuse me… I'm Karen Walker's attorney, Will Truman. For the good of a related case, I need to ask you a couple of questions about my client."

The fact he took out of his briefcase all the elements susceptible to be required for such a situation, the nurse nodded immediately then shrugged.

"Mrs. Walker isn't here. She only comes on…"

"Friday, I know. Now I need to get the reasons of her weekly visits here. May I have a name or something, perhaps a medical file?"

"I'm not sure I should… I mean, it's her private life we're talking about."

"But I'm defending her in a case, so the more elements you give me the more chances Mrs. Walker has to actually win."

Will's heart began to hurt at this exact moment but taking a deep breath he buried his morals in a part of his head where nobody would ever think to come around.

"She comes to visit Mr. Delaney, her father. He's been one of our patients for a very long time now."

……

They never saw each other on Saturday. As much as they loved claiming out loud that they were free of any kind of commitment, some rules had finally made their way in the little game they had been playing and avoiding any sexual encounter on weekend had turned to be one of them.

Until he left a message on her mail voice a couple of hours earlier, literally begging her to come to The Lowell but he had her agenda and the truth was, she needed it; just in case, for a thousand things.

She entered the suite, closed the door behind her and smiled at him awkwardly. Will was standing on the other side of the room and seemed impatient, worried and feverish. She noticed a travel bag at the foot of the bed.

Raising a playful eyebrow, Karen finally broke the silence.

"Are you coming from the gym or I should have taken my own belongings to spend the night…"

But the end of her question came to die in Will's sudden kiss and she gasped in his mouth, vaguely lost her balance as his lips made contact with hers. His hands passed on her waist to prevent her from falling, passing underneath her cashmere top.

She broke the kiss, breathless, and looked at him with confusion.

With a shaking hand Will brushed her face then smiled, brightly. For some reason it didn't look like the other days, the other times; all those suites they had rented if only for a couple of hours before vanishing in the darkness of the night in a yellow cab with all the anonymity lovers always wanted to have.

"Honey, if it's because of the remark I made yesterday… I knew that you didn't think I was a quick fuck or anything. I just… I don't know. I got confused."

"No it's no about that, Kare. It's not about that."

She wouldn't have any other chance to ask him about the reason why he had asked her to come that night because then his lips found back hers and she very soon laid down on the bed, caressing his legs with her feet as they began to undress each other.

Softly, slowly; but his breath on her bare skin was still hot and driving her crazy. She closed her eyes and let him do as his kisses led him to her bare stomach, his fingers caressing her thighs.

A light kiss abandoned on her neck and she squeezed his waist tightly, moving under him in a fluid movement, implicit enough to let him understand that she was ready.

She arched her back, swallowed hard and finally locked her eyes with his brown ones as his kisses brought him back to her face. His tongue brushed her swollen lips, stirring up a bright, breathless smile on her face.

She passed a hand through his hair, frowned playfully as Will suddenly stopped moving _ on top of her _ a few inches still separating their bodies.

"What's happening, honey?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing…"

The rest of her wonders died in his kiss.


	9. Ninth portrait, lies

Mason…

I don't like when she cries and she has been crying a lot, lately. If you happen to tell her so, she stands up and pretends that it is not true, that you are actually lying. She frowns, tries to lower her voice to sound menacing then finally turns on her heels because it doesn't work very well, especially with Olivia and me. Perhaps she doesn't dare, just in case our father would be mad at her then and decide to get a divorce.

I don't know though because I barely saw them together when he wasn't in jail yet.

She spends a lot of time in her bedroom and in the library. Reading, putting on makeup, sleeping… She always has a drink in hand, sips it from to time but when for some reason she feels very sad, she drops out alcohol and the pills as if the pain required her to be sober enough to feel it spread over. And then she cries, in silence.

The truth is that we don't know why it occurs and it leaves us so disarmed. It seems that something is crashing down, like her whole life or something as important, and her loneliness is devastating, cold.

The house turns very quiet by then until the door finally gets slammed and she rushes away. Olivia says that she has an affair. I tend to think she actually is in love.

Is there any difference? I guess so because it might be the mysterious reason that always ends up easing her despair.

…….

The light sensation of his hand going up her leg caused her to move slowly and moan, still halfway between her dreams and reality. She arched her back as his lips made contact with her bare stomach _ smiled brightly _ and counted until five before grabbing him softly by the hair for a face-to-face.

"Good morning, Kare…"

Light kiss on the lips, she frowned.

"How is my makeup?"

"Mostly gone to be honest…"

The remark set off the usual series of reactions from a gasp to the sudden rush to the bathroom, way too concentrated on the fact she didn't have makeup on to actually notice she was still fully naked.

They had barely spent more than four nights together but yet her reaction had always been the same the morning after. The first time it had caught Will by surprise but the months had passed by, getting into their routine even the most ridiculous gestures.

"You know, I seriously doubt that seeing you without makeup would scare me. You have a very nice complexion. You're lucky."

Karen finally emerged from the bathroom and leaned on the doorframe, rolled her eyes; laughed.

"Oh please, I'm almost transparent!"

"I still think it's quite sexy."

Playfully walking on her tiptoes, she made her way to the bed and looked at Will spread on his stomach over the sheets. His back was perfect, the spine emphasizing the graceful lines of his body. He worked out a lot and the result was deliciously appealing.

"Since when do you read The New York Times naked, by the way?"

The palm of her hand made full contact with his shoulder and very slowly she began to trace a path down his back, her lips following in a trail of kisses.

"It actually is a very relaxing activity."

Her fingers finally reached his buttocks in a soft, light caress. Her breath brushed his skin, making him shiver and slightly move, already excited. Her tongue warmed up his flesh under a transparent path to his thigh. Her hand passed on his stomach, getting trapped there between his skin and the sheets.

"Turn around, honey."

Still holding the newspaper, Will obeyed and locked his eyes with hers. She bit her lower lip to restrain a smile and raised a mischievous eyebrow as her fingertips ran down his shaft lightly.

"Would you mind to stop reading now?"

The tip of her tongue made contact with his flesh and she felt his whole body got tensed under the light touch as his fingers came to get lost in her hair. The New York Times landed on the floor quietly, absorbed in a long sigh escaping from Will's lips.

She hadn't forgotten his mysterious attitude of the day before; the unknown reason why he had called her in such a rush, why they had barely talked and most of all his obvious sweetness. It had troubled her.

And it was time to put everything back in order.

After several comings and goings of the tip of her tongue on him, she finally made the last inches between her mouth and his flesh disappear.

What she loved the most about those situations was the sensation of control she seemed to have over her partner. His senses were boiling, leading him to lose his mind in a crazy motion. He was at her mercy and it made her feel so strong somehow.

As an answer to the random question of what kind of animal or bug she would have liked to be, the image of a praying mantis had jumped in her head immediately; how the female always ended up killing her sexual partners, tearing their heads apart.

It wasn't that she wanted to hurt them but still, it was the only way to protect herself from their constant lying.

Breathless, she made her way up his chest before finding back his lips in a deep kiss and straddling him properly. A smile played against her mouth and she broke apart, stared at Will with confusion. He just smirked.

"You might have reapplied but you're wearing your glasses now."

"My contact lenses are dead."

With a vague gesture of her head she motioned the bedside table where she had abandoned her contacts previously. Will's hand ran up from her buttocks to her nape, his fingers getting intertwined in her hair.

"To be honest I prefer when you have your glasses. It's kind of sexy."

"There's no need to lie, you're already having your way with me."

Her hips started moving.


	10. Tenth portrait, finding out

Cathy…

I have known Karen for a very long time, way before she became Mrs. Walker and somehow took my place in Stan's arms. This is not something she likes talking about, for some obvious reason. Who would feel fine to say this kind of things, anyway? Yes, I do excuse her because the truth is… I miss her.

Sarah Laurence, freshman year; this is where we met. Karen was majoring in psychology and I in History. From roommates we became very close friends. I envied her to be honest. She seemed to have this self-confidence and ambition I was lacking. All I was thinking about was getting married to some rich guy when she wanted to have a real career. I still can't believe she gave up her studies to marry one of my husband's acquaintances. Something probably pushed her to do so, a third party, because it was so unexpected.

I knew that she was seeing Stanley way before we got a divorce. My marriage was over anyway and perhaps if I think about it now, it is logical enough that they ended up together. She is exactly what Stan was looking for in a woman. Intellectual and strong temper, the exact opposite of me… Karen hates showing her knowledge but believe me, she is far from being stupid and she knows a lot, about many different things.

We barely speak to each other now. I wouldn't mind but she keeps on refusing to even cross my gaze more than a couple of minutes. I guess she still feels guilty for having broken my marriage and so she remains distant. I have news from the kids. They know her very well.

They say she's not happy when with Stanley.

.......

"How is it to be married?"

She tended a ten-dollar bill to the bartender but stared at Grace with surprise. She grabbed her coffee, turned around _ scanning the room to find an available table _ and shrugged at her friend. If she didn't speak that much about her marriage, there was a reason to.

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Because… I can't imagine my life without a wedding so I wonder how it is once you have made this step and let's face it, Will and Jack can't help me to visualize the whole thing."

"Well…"

She finally sat down, took her coat off and began to play with her hot beverage. She was uncomfortable or just bitter. She didn't know exactly but whatever was going on, it was weighing a lot on her feelings.

"My husband is in jail. He never told me that he loved me since then and the last time he held my hand… I don't even remember it."

It might not have been the reply that Grace had expected because all of a sudden she became pale, almost livid.

"Would you cheat on him?"

For the very first time since the beginning of the conversation, Karen locked her eyes with Grace's, swallowed hard.

"Of course not…"

But she met Will at the end of the day and the day after too. As a matter of fact, she wasn't planning to stop, at any moment. His kisses were a drug and she needed a fix as soon as possible before withdrawal symptoms stole her dreams, turned her life into a silent nightmare. She needed his arms around her, his smile on her mouth. Sweeter than cocaine, the dependence was still hard, very hard.

Unless all she was dying for was the presence of someone by her side.

Monday and Thursday passed by, absorbing in a quick motion Wednesday; following the same routine, the same secrets. Perhaps if she had been attentive she would have noticed the presence of someone a few feet behind, every night. But she was way too absorbed in the polite smile given to the receptionist, the bare seconds of wait in front of the elevator, her stifled steps on the carpeted floor and finally his hands sliding on her waist as he captured her lips in a tender motion.

She usually opened the door and came into the suite, closed behind her. But for some reason, maybe fate, on this Thursday evening the rules got changed. She grabbed the doorknob but Will opened before and kissed her deeply, there, right in the corridor. It's not that she really minded but coincidence had made that for the very first time Grace had dared to make it to the upper floor and there she was now, a few feet away, witnessing the evidence of cruel sentiments.

She didn't go to work on Friday. Grace's birthday was supposed to be held in the evening and there were still a lot of things to prepare, taking advantage of the fact the principal interested would be at her office which let Karen time to get everything ready.

Like every Friday, she also went to New Jersey and spent two hours holding an old man's hand, hoping that the simple touch _ skin-to-skin _ still caused in his blurry head the profusion of a thousand memories. At five o'clock she left the room and headed to the reception to sign the register and get her identity card back; matter of security at the psychiatrist ward.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Walker."

"Good afternoon, Eva."

A young nurse was at the desk, filling with attention some files. Karen smiled at her politely and waited for her I.D.

The woman made it slide on the counter, smiling back.

"I hope your trial is going to be alright. When is it?"

Karen stopped her gesture of opening her bag halfway, taken aback by the nonsense of the question. Frowning, she looked up at the nurse then shook her head.

"I'm afraid you are mistaking me for someone else. I have no trial going on."

"Isn't Mr. Truman your attorney?"


	11. Eleventh portrait, argument

Beverly…

She happened to be there, by my side, at a point in my life when I was needing someone. She was true to herself and to the others too. That's what I liked the most the first time I met Karen. She still preferred to be harsh than dishonest.

Her marriage with Stanley Walker surprised me a lot. Not only was Cathy a friend of her but she also looked way too much like her future husband. How can two people who have a thing for loneliness succeed in a shared relationship? They are still together, or so, but they will end up divorcing. It is simply a matter of time and logic.

I love her subtlety. It is actually a default but she managed to get something of it, something moving and smart. She might talk to you with harsh words but yet her gaze keeps on saying the exact opposite. She is sweet, fragile and insecure. Any man who had the chance to know her in the intimacy would probably confirm it.

She does drink, indeed, and takes pills. I guess she likes the world a bit fuzzy, far from this weight that pushes her down whenever she tries something to move on. She won't fall into pure abuse either. She is smart enough to know when to stop; and why.

I haven't spent some time with her in a while. I miss our conversations, the ones she accepts to have when there is nobody around. Psychology is her favorite subject. After all she studied it in college, brilliantly.

I wish her the best, that's all I can say. Karen Walker is an adorable woman.

…….

Like in a bad synchronization, she got stuck in traffic and had enough time to feel her anger boiling before burning in her lower stomach. The sensation of iciness spreading over her heart had finally ceased but not the rest, on the contrary. Everything was getting worse like this odd sensation in her eyes and the pressure on her throat. She wanted to cry.

The car emerged in The Upper West Side around eight and when it finally stopped on Riverside Drive, Karen looked up at the building then hesitated. Until then it hadn't even crossed her mind that she could actually go away and come back home like that, passing the evening in a torrent of tears and Vodka.

She opened the door of the car and stepped out of it. She needed to talk to him, to tell him everything. Besides it was Grace's party and it would have sounded really selfish if she hadn't showed up at all. She was her friend, a very close one. She had to be there, end of the conversation.

Slowly she made her way to the ninth floor and got absorbed by the loud music, the heat of the crowd as she opened the door and came in.

Will; immediately she scanned the room for him, barely paying attention to the rest of the scene. He was standing against the French windows leading to the small terrace _ a glass of wine in hand _ talking to some guy she had never seen before. Without excusing herself she grabbed his wrist and dragged him outside on the terrace; swallowed hard.

"Where the hell were you, Kare? We tried to call you like a thousand times!"

"How dared you?"

Her icy tone of voice stopped Will immediately, made his smile freeze. He blinked, obviously confused. Her hands began to shake. She took a deep breath.

"How dared you to follow me like that? They told me everything at the clinic, so don't look for some stupid excuse. I know what you did."

"Well…"

"You fucking betrayed me! How could you do that? How could you stalk me like that just to satisfy your curiosity? I thought… I trusted you, Will. But you just used me, in spite of everything; all the things we shared. I can't believe I was wrong about you. You're not better than the others and will never be. It's not your fault, you know. I'm just way too naïve."

"Would you please stop your drama, Karen? You're making a big fuss about such a detail and to be honest with you, if you didn't keep all these things secret then people wouldn't go for them as soon as you had turned your back."

"But it is nobody's business!"

"Yes, it is when it makes you suffer like that! It does, don't lie to me. I know it does. It makes you suffocate when the situation could be a lot more bearable if you shared it with a friend. But you don't trust anyone, not even yourself. And so the pain goes on, stronger and stronger."

"You're not a fucking shrink! Stop your bullshit. Like you actually care about your friends' feelings… You're not worth it, Will. You have never been."

Because the own pressure over her heart was beginning to weigh too much, she turned on her heels and headed back to the French windows but stopped as Will grabbed her wrist. She looked down at his hand on hers, how at some point she had thought they matched each other. Now it was just cold and empty, pointless.

"Don't touch me."

Will let go of her and she stepped back in only to face Grace who had obviously been waiting there.

The contact of Grace's fingers on her cheek resulted brief but a sudden pain substituted the slap. Bringing a shaking hand to her face, Karen looked at her friend in disbelief. The music was so loud and the room plunged in such semi-darkness that nobody else but Will, standing in her back, noticed the violent gesture.

Grace made a step forward, getting a few inches away from her.

"You fucking slut!"

Karen ran away.


	12. Twelfth portrait, confessing

Karen…

When I tell them I need to be alone, I wish they threw their arms around my frame.

When I stay quiet on a subject, I would love them to force me to speak.

When I pretend I don't do emotions, it means that I am already submersed by a hundred feelings.

When I say I don't like children, I actually can't stand myself to provide enough love to another person.

When I snap, I subtly hide a kiss in the embarrassment of my incapacities to express myself properly.

When I keep on smiling, I am actually crying.

I don't know when it all started. It hasn't always been like that. At some point in my life, a very long time ago, I never used a single lie. The tears came out when required, my smiles were bright and light and I felt fine, so fine.

Now I have the feeling that I live in the dark. Behind an interminable series of appearances, I say over and over that I am fine. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? People still believe me though. That's what hurts the most in the end because it is just a desperate attempt to make them react but they don't, never.

And then I crash.

I drink, I take drugs and embrace my lies as if they were my whole life. The worst of all is that they might have turned that way somehow and it lets me disarmed.

I thought he had understood and that for once I had found someone who could read through the blurry lines. I know that, somehow, I shouldn't blame him because he was right when he told me that if I didn't hide all these things, I wouldn't have the sentiment to feel betrayed.

But why are they so afraid to push me to confess myself?

I thought we shared something even though we never talked about it but it seems that Will is actually like any other man.

……

It would have been okay if she hadn't noticed the brown envelop sagely put down on the table the next morning. She hadn't closed an eye of the night, just stared intently at the wall on her right side and wondered why she didn't manage to cry.

But in the early hours of the morning she had left her bedroom to wander through the house until her steps had led her to the table in the hall. The envelop hadn't been stamped but yet looked a lot like something she knew way too well about. With a shaking hand she had grabbed it and taken out of it the divorce papers sent by an attorney.

Stanley had already signed.

The journey to New Jersey got lost in a complete blurriness and it's only when the car stopped in front of the clinic that Karen came back to reality.

"Oh, is everything alright Mrs. Walker?"

Suddenly her name stirred up an odd stitching sensation on her heart and she swallowed hard; didn't smile though. With awkwardness and precipitation she took her I.D. out of her bag and tended it to the nurse then rushed to the bedroom.

She stormed in but froze as she came to face a lonely body abandoned in a metallic hospital bed, so impersonal. Her breath was short _ for some mysterious reason _ and her mouth dry.

"Hi…"

Swallowing back a shaking voice, Karen approached the bed slowly and took the cold hand between hers, as usual. But all of a sudden she slid her legs up on the mattress and settled down against her father then rested her head on his shoulder.

They had spent so many hours in this position when life hadn't yet turned the way it finally had. She closed her eyes, bit her lower lip as a burning sensation began to caress her throat but as much as she tried not to, Karen burst into tears.

And then she told him everything, even though he wouldn't reply and maybe wasn't aware of her own speech. The words needed to come out of her mouth, to reach the air before vanishing in a whirl of pain above her head.

They hadn't spoken for three decades. Thirty years wasted to pretend that their silent was still better than nothing when it had weighed so much on her shoulders. All the feelings she had kept inside throughout the years were rushing out with a blinding strength but curiously enough a single image remained all along in her head: Will.

"I am not in love but yet I can't afford to lose him; no matters he turned his back at me and lied… And there is all the rest, Grace and Jack."

Her fingers pressed the tiny hand, caressed the thin skin.

"I wish I were like you. At least everyone would have turned the page over me and I would be forgotten. Perhaps I would suffer from it but still… I wouldn't have to face my constant social failures. I'm not good at living."

It would have been a lie if she had said that she hadn't expected a sign, any kind of reaction from her father but it didn't happen until she left the clinic and stepped back into a taxi. Then the old man laid down in the impersonal, metallic hospital bed, silently burst into tears for the first time in three decades.

Leaning her head against the window of the car, the monotone landscape of New Jersey suddenly disappeared as Karen closed her eyes and clenched her fists.

If she wasn't good at living, was it worth it to keep on pretending the exact opposite?


	13. Thirteenth portrait, bee

Catherine…

I met Karen the day she turned five years old. Preoccupied by the little girl's strange behavior, her mother had brought her to my office with a latent despair in her eyes, wondering when it had got wrong and why; hoping nothing but me to save her child.

A lot of people think we have the capacity to resolve any kind of trouble but they are wrong. We eventually listen and talk but there is no miracle, not in psychology. It is science, biology and communication. If my clients get saved at some point, they only owe it to themselves and certainly not to me.

I remember it was raining because she had kept on observing the drops falling down the window. The paleness of her skin had taken me aback, as well as the emptiness of her eyes, the blankness of her gaze. She wasn't fine and needed help but refused it all along, barely spoke. It would take me a few months to finally realize how afraid she was of words, how the thousand wonders haunting her mind prevented her from breathing properly.

She was extremely smart, way above the average. Her anxiety before life only resulted from a brain in constant work, like a machine that would have broken down any kind of control.

One day she didn't come to her appointment and we never heard from her again. Her family had moved away suddenly, leaving no explanation behind. Karen was in the middle of her therapy. I am afraid this unexpected change only got things worse in the end.

The years passed by and I forgot about this little girl's incomprehensible case until the day I found myself facing her at a social party in The Upper East Side. She had married a businessman, a very wealthy one, but hadn't changed that much; only made of her timidity an odd, artificial self-confidence.

She recognized me immediately and only smiled, vaguely blushing.

She still had this emptiness in her eyes, the light of the ones who have dreamed too far.

……

It wasn't a precipitated gesture. As a matter of fact, she had been thinking about it for a very long time with the only difference that in her fantasy, she was supposed to feel fine while doing it.

She turned around and looked at the cardboard boxes scattered in the empty, new living-room, sighed as sadness spread over her heart for the thousandth time.

Someone knocked on the door. She jumped, surprised.

She wasn't expecting anybody. To be exact, her cell phone had stopped ringing after the nightmarish Saturday night and as much as she wanted to advance the idea that she didn't care at all, she just couldn't. The lie got trapped in her heart, pressing tightly against her throat.

She opened the door and faced Will. From rushing into his arms, bursting into tears to asking him how he had got her new address, she restrained it all inside and simply raised a blank eyebrow at his presence there.

He looked sad. Curiously enough, it made her feel bad.

"I miss you, Kare."

The door got slammed and she went back to her so-called activity, pretending not to pay attention to Will's stifled voice, the way he was imploring her to come in and have a talk.

It is not that she didn't want to but the truth was that for the very first time in her life, she lacked words to express the confusion of her mind and the burning sensation over her heart. It hurt but it went above pain. She had suffered in the past but it had never been so hard, so cold; leaving her completely disarmed.

"It took him a lot of energy to write it down so please, read it."

Obviously she had managed to ignore Will's words for a minute or so because his last comment didn't make sense at all in her head. Frowning, she looked how an envelope got slid under her door; how the movement suddenly stopped and got swallowed by remorseful steps of Will leaving her alone.

She could have ignored the missive and kept on emptying cardboard boxes but an odd instinct pushed her towards the white square of paper resting on the hardwood floor. She grabbed it, opened the envelope and began to read.

_It is not that I don't like repeating myself over and over my little bee but one day I won't be here anymore to say it so it would be a good thing if for once, you kept it in mind and accepted it as the only advice we should stick to: don't ignore your feelings just because you don't know where they lead. At some point you needed me to go on, you used to take my hand to make a step forward in this world. But now you got your own set of wings. It's time to live. Go, fly and feel, my little bee._

_I love you more than you will ever imagine…_

Pointlessly enough Karen ran to the door and opened it widely, hoping that Will would still be standing there. But the hallway was empty, plunged in the dark like an ironical symbol of what was left of her life.

_My little bee…_

Just when she had started thinking that people had forgotten she had kept on living, her father had had to prove her the exact opposite.

She let go of the letter, closed her eyes but against her own expectations, didn't burst into tears.

_Bees don't cry. They fly and live._


	14. Fourteenth portrait, blaming

Henry…

We kissed and she ran away.

It took me aback, made me confused and I spent the rest of the night wondering why she had done that. You never know with Karen. You can't be sure of anything. The slightest gesture is most of the times unexpected and lost in her lack of references, she drags you all around with a disturbing fragility.

That's why we fall for her. She's like the lightness of a summer breeze, full of life and so insecure at the same time. But she always ends up turning her back at you, probably scared of losing an everything she doesn't allow herself to reach.

Of course I saw her the next day at school but she meticulously avoided me and before the end of the week, she had moved to another city.

She used to tell me that she didn't remember her past, that every single detail seemed to have been deleted from her mind. At first I thought she was lying but then I realized that subconsciously, she might have tried to escape it that way, forgetting it.

We didn't talk that much, mainly because it used to make her uncomfortable. So we simply went for a walk along the river and enjoyed each other's warmth through our intertwined fingers.

She hadn't kissed anyone before. She cared about me, a lot. But she still ran away, probably scared that she would end up ruining everything. She has such a low self-esteem.

Sometimes I wonder where she is now and if she is happy but for some reason I am sure that she keeps on running.

……

"Where is he? Where is Will? I need to talk to him!"

The contrast between her sudden high temper and Grace's perfect quietness only managed to emphasize her impatience and she looked all around for him, barely paying attention to the fact she was sharing a room with the woman who had slapped her five days earlier and had had no news from since then. Sometimes the awkwardness of a situation simply seemed to vanish in emergency.

Putting down her mug on the coffee table, Grace shook her head then shrugged.

"He is not here yet. We were running out of milk so he went for some at…"

"Then why does he not take his calls?"

The way she cut Grace's sentence off resulted extremely impolite and irrelevant but she didn't focalize on the fact either and frowned, nervous. Her breath was short. Her heart was pounding loud in her chest. Her mouth was dry. And curiously enough, she had never felt so alive in her whole life.

"Is it about your father? I mean the letter he wrote… If so then your reaction is perfectly normal, you know. But don't freak out either."

All of a sudden the fact that Grace was talking to her hit her mind and she made an instinctive step backwards, frowning before her friend's appearing calm. Then the words made sense and she gasped as a boiling anger spread in her stomach.

"How do you know about that?"

Her voice was cold and very low, shaking. She didn't need an answer at all. She had guessed the slightest detail or so, unfortunately. Anticipating was always a bitter feeling.

"When you left on Saturday, I was too mad to even speak but Will insisted and so he told us about it, everything."

"What do you mean by 'us'?"

"Jack and me… Karen, it is okay. Actually I'm really sorry and if I had known earlier.."

"Don't fucking touch me!"

Grace had stood up and approached her, tending her arms in an attempt of one of those suffocating hugs she had always hated so much. It was when people only resented pity towards you and it made them feel so bad that they desperately tried to be sweet, just to be forgiven for the rest of their lives.

"Karen, my gesture was harsh. It really took me aback. I mean Will and you. But then…"

"No! You don't know anything and you will never do. Because nobody does! Nor Will, nor my mother, nor… Nobody! So shut the fuck off and save your stupid condescendence."

"If you weren't always so secretive then maybe people wouldn't react as they do with you, you know. You don't want to be a victim then fine but start acting differently in order to avoid dramas like this one. We can help you…"

"No, you can't. Nobody can. Damn, don't you understand that if I stay quiet it's because it's too late? Everything's screwed. I'm not worth it."

Another step backwards; she hit the door that she had previously closed in a dramatic gesture while rushing in. Grace's hand reached her wrist. She immediately moved her arm away, jumped under the contact.

"Karen, it's not your fault if your father has been put in a psychiatric ward. I mean he needed to. None of what occurred is a sequel to your decisions or behavior. It might be sad but it's the way it is. You're not to blame in this story."

"Of course I am because as much as I always knew how terrible things had turned, I never did anything to prevent it from happening. I just followed quietly and let my family do when we moved away, abandoned him behind pretending that it had just been a very bad dream. All these years… I haven't been there for him. I ignored my father, Grace! My father…"

"But you still love him and he knows about it. That's why you visit him every week. You were just a child, what could you have done?"

"I shouldn't have remained so quiet. I shouldn't have done that."

"You still have time to stand up and fight, in your own way."

And she was wasting her minutes there, in the apartment when she could have been by her father's side for already a long time. She turned on her heels and opened the door. Her legs were heavy and her mind cloudy, completely blurry. She made a few steps in the hallway and pressed the button for the elevator.

"You love him, don't you?"

Turning around, she locked her eyes with Grace's but remained quiet for knowing way too well whom her friend was talking about and why.

The door of the elevator opened. She swallowed hard, looked down at the floor and shook her head before disappearing in the elevator through a murmur of apologies.

"No, he just makes me feel fine."

"Karen, that's what love is about."


	15. Fifteenth portrait, anticipation

Bella…

She is not as bad as she would like us to think. As a matter of fact, she is a lot more fragile than most of us. I remember that when she was about to cry, she used to rush on the fire escape to lit a cigarette but she didn't smoke it. She kept it close to her eyes so that her tears got lost in the chemical reaction of her body at the contact of the smoke.

She wasn't that much of a rebel to be honest. There was this pressure suffocating her and so she found it delicious to pretend that she was angry against everything, against everyone. She could have been a brilliant student but the idea to fit in the crowd and pass unnoticed scared her too much so she remained in the average, giving the minimum to get what she wanted. It worked out until she began to do the same with her love life.

She has always had a thing for the bad guys. Perhaps it is her own way not to get attached, not to fall in love and when the end shows up at least she is not disappointed because it had been written all along. Since she had moved in with me at the age of sixteen, I witnessed the series of boyfriends stopping by the apartment. Most of them were from those wealthy families who own penthouses in The Upper East Side and country houses in The Hamptons. An angel face but a devilish mind, the worst manipulators that would always make her sad… And they did, in spite of the shield she had thought so hard, so perfect.

She married one. He asked for a divorce within a year and it crashed her down. It is when she started drinking, taking pills and plunging into a very dark cynicism. Stanley didn't change the slightest thing, of course. He even got arrested. She was reaching the bottom when she got hired as an assistant.

She could have become a wonderful psychiatrist as she had planned to but her own strategy finally turned into the worst trap ever and she grew dependant of her relationships.

She thinks she's a failure now. My little niece…

……

She might have rushed a bit too loudly in the clinic according to the faces that stared at her in disbelief as she almost crashed on the counter of the reception, her I.D. in hand. The journey from Manhattan had never seemed so long, such a waste of time when she had so many things to share with the man she hadn't spoken to in three decades.

"Good afternoon, Mandy."

"Oh, Mrs. Walker… Did you finally get our messages?"

The question took her aback but her impatience was such that she only shook her head and shrugged.

"No, the batteries of my cell phone are dead and I had a very busy day actually. Can I have an application form, please? I am really in a hurry right now."

The nurse opened her mouth to reply but remained quiet as her eyes swept the room in a slight discomfort. Clearing her voice nervously, the nurse began to twirl her chair from right to left with an indecision that was getting on Karen's nerves.

"What are you waiting for, damn it?"

"Mrs. Walker, please calm down and let me see if you can have a private talk with Doctor Bloomberg. The fact is that we have been calling you all day long and…"

"I just told you that my cell phone was dead. Is there something you don't understand in this sentence?"

But then it hit her mind and she swallowed hard, feeling how her heart was suddenly beating loud and fast; how her mouth was dry.

"Why did you try to reach me, anyway?"

A complete loss of self-confidence within a few seconds; her voice that had been so firm sounded all shaking now. The nurse locked her eyes with hers and shook her head apologetically.

"Mrs. Walker, I am really sorry."

"What are you talking about?"

And another bitter anticipation that came to spread over her heart.

"Mr. Delaney passed away this morning, quietly in his sleep."

Time seemed to get suspended then unless it actually flew away and she just lost any kind of reference towards it. The world turned quiet, following the rhythm of her heart and the slow pace of her signature getting engraved on a dozen of papers.

She was blank, as if her brain had decided to rest in peace too because there wasn't any reason to go on anymore, about anything.

She hadn't told him goodbye, barely whispered "I love you" in a kiss on his forehead and most of all they hadn't talked, hadn't shared all the things she would have loved to say.

_Fly away, little bee…_

His voice was dancing now in her head and it made her feel dizzy.

When she passed the doors of the clinic and stepped outside, a bright sun blinded her. Overwhelmed by the warmth of life, her legs refused to carry her on even longer and so she sat down on a bench, staring blankly in front of her.

How many hours passed by unless it was just one minute before Will's voice made its way to her blurry brain?

"Karen…"

She looked up and blinked. He was standing there in the sun, waiting desperately for her next move; obviously troubled by her absence of reaction and how lonely she must have looked sat down there on an abandoned bench.

Her head found refuge in his neck. She broke into tears, holding tight the legal papers and a plastic bag that contained a couple of things that used to belong to her dad.


	16. Sixteenth portrait, ending

Olivia…

I saw her the other day in the street. For the very first time since we got to meet each other, she looked truly happy. There was something in her eyes, a sort of pale shade of hope. I wished her the best. She did as well for me.

Grace…

Has a page got turned and we are all on the verge to start a new one? I don't know. It sounds a bit too cliché somehow. It is more about adaptation to the nonetheless logical evolution of our lives. Adaptation and understanding, even though it might take time…

Jack…

I have never seen her like that. Every day brings something new about her, an element that gets lost in a perfect fusion with the rest of her unique temper. It is not that I have been mad at her but upset that she hadn't come to me in the first place.

Stanley…

She said that she would think about it and eventually attend my wedding. We are just two old friends. Actually we have always been. But I am in love now and I know she is happy for me. I wish I could say the same about her but the truth is that I have no idea.

Lois…

She might have made the peace with a large part of her past and with me at the same time. I guess she understood a couple of things she had simply refused to face until now. We talked a lot after the funeral, shared a thousand memories.

Mason…

I miss her. Sometimes I wish that she would pick me up after school and we would go to Serendipity's. We used to do it a lot, especially when dad wasn't in town. But they're not together anymore so the situation has changed a lot.

Bella…

She has found the right one and so she is freaking out now. It is obvious. You can see it in her eyes and the way she blushes whenever someone calls his name. It is all confused in her head but I'm hopeful this time. Her heart will end up winning the battle over her mind.

Catherine…

She is back. I have to say that it was completely unexpected but she nonetheless did and we began to work back on her therapy. She has done a great job on her own so far but there is still a lot that remains in the dark.

Henry…

Someone told me that she was living in Manhattan and had divorced three times. Who knows, perhaps one day we will meet each other in the street and realize that we were meant to be, or not since I have been said that she was seeing someone.

Cathy…

The rumors say that she is pregnant. But yet they are only rumors and about Karen, besides. If it is ever true then I am sure that she finally found what happiness was and if it is just a couple of lies, I still know that she is fine.

Virginia…

Is she dating someone? Sometimes it seems so, sometimes it doesn't. It is kind of confusing to be honest because until now she has always been very open if not loud about her relationships. And all of a sudden she is very subtle, almost secretive.

Beverly…

She is not pregnant but yet I can tell you that she is dating someone. Does it sound weird if I add that she doesn't know it herself? If so it means you still have a lot to learn about her. Things might change and evolve but she is still paradoxical.

Will…

We aren't a couple. We aren't dating each other. She spends some time at home. I spend some time at her place and we let the wind carry it all. We don't hold hands in public. We don't kiss in front of Jack and Grace but there is something. There has always been something.

Karen…

The day my father died, I had this urge to still feel alive. I wanted him to make love to me, over and over so that the warmth of his skin against mine would sweep away my absence of well-being. He refused but remained by my side. It is all I need now. It is all I always needed as a matter of fact.

……

Her legs slid against his as she came to rest on her side, never breaking contact with his body. His hands were soft on her waist, on her neck. His breath was coming to her face by waves of warmth, sending shivers down her spine.

She planted a kiss on his shoulder blade then locked her eyes with his brown ones; smiled. What would be left of them in a month, in a year, in a week? The question hadn't stopped haunting her mind for quite a while now, crashing over and over against the walls of her brain.

She had absolutely no idea but perhaps it was the way things should have been in the end. Perhaps she shouldn't have tried to plan and control so many things in the past. Then her life might have been a little less blurry, a little less unbalanced.

_What will become of us?_

She would never dare to ask it out loud. She wasn't ready, didn't want to. After all, everyone seemed to be okay with the way things were right now, as awkward and uncertain as they were.

"Tomorrow I want to wake up in your arms."

His lips brushed hers and she settled against him, her head resting in the depths of his neck. Things should always be as simple as that if it was all about making life bright.

"What kind of dreams do you have when you sleep in my arms?"

Her hand slid on his chest until they made contact with his own ones and she held them tight.

"It is more a series of words and images which ensemble always leads to a sort of portrait."

"What kind of portrait is it?"

Will turned the light off and planted a kiss on top of Karen's head. She sighed, a bit evasively.

"A portrait of me…"


End file.
